i had this overwhelming desire to feel sunlight upon my face so i shaved off my beard and now i look like a fat faced pea head, and to cap it all it's rained non stop. however this did not stop me venturing out towards the city to catch everyones favourite rock legend the cosmic space rocker steve kilbey and his counterpoint the very wise and talented mr mark gable whom i have to say an unlikely pairing when you consider their musical influences, yet mark has an appreciation of steve's music that i can relate to as well, it's as though he to was caught in the spell of those songs.
well i arrived in nude town very early as i was to meet my church friend wilde childe but she was running late so i pottered around the bookshops and almost picked up a big volume of hunter s thompson's three late collections but realised i had read two off them. i was kind of frayed and exhausted, the week had been impossibly draining, it was a miracle i had made it, my bones ached with tiredness and my mind was scattered, i needed a good lie down and a cup of tea but i didn't want to miss the last of these shows, 'a stumble through australian music.'
i liked the songs they had chosen to play, great songs from australian musicians that i was vaguely familiar with yet their interpretations gave them new life, an energy that soared and was proud and graceful, you could really get a sense of what australian music was like at the time, something lacking in my appreciation. i only knew the church as australian, that was it, i discovered australian music when i got here in 1988, the rest of my education was based in london and new york.
australia had a scene, it had this great culture of songs and as steve and mark played them images and feelings of exciting possibilities flew up in my mental landscape. 
i met with wilde childe who was as frazzled as i, she bussed it, stuck in traffic, her week equally frustrating as mine. 
we had a quick pick me up coffee hit and went inside. i wanted to catch groom epoch who we had renamed groovy ewok, they were richard ploogs new band and i had liked what i had heard online, live they were great, they hit a groove after a few songs and suddenly doors opened, yeah i like that sound a lot, it was space rock with a groove. can't wait to get the cd, i can picture myself driving along the highway listening to them blasting out my speakers. 
richard remained on stage as he drums with steve and mark and i have to say he makes those songs come alive. marks guitar was amazing, it filled the room, felt like there were two guitar players on stage, i dunno how he does that, it's very effective, even dutch pierre was impressed with that awesome sound.
when they launched into the first song (i don't know what it's called) and those 'tra la la la le's' hit, man that's when you just knew it was going to be a special night. absolutely brilliant, in a class of their own these guys made those songs come alive. 
something like 'stumbling through australian music' should be on the abc as a special, steve and mark are so incongruous yet they work so well, they say it's due to their heights, but i think it's probably down to some other ingredient, whatever it is, it works and  the crowd loved it. very funny night, part rock, part vaudeville, part cabaret, part comedy, part education. 
it would be a great show abc people, get on it and make it happen!
had to split early due to train issues and ended up arriving home at 3am. on the train i noticed someone had left a book, a large hardback edition of the gita on the seat opposite me. that book always pops up in my life. i was book-less so i started into it, it's the hare krishna version, the one i grew up with in hertfordshire where my parents moved to, just down the road from the big temple george harrison built. every sunday i'd wander over and have lunch with the krishnas, they were intrigued by my background and i was into their excellent free lunches, i also liked the fact they were always happy, free from all of the bullshit, just singing and playing tambourines, eating karmic free food, doing some chanting plus they had sexy girls. 
i spent years going there every sunday afternoon.

when i was learning to drive my instructor (who was also my dealer) told me he was joining the krishna movement and i was deeply upset as i looked forward to my driving lessons which were really an excuse for a smoke. he disappeared and i think ended up in the usa or jail, he was involved in some murky business but i liked to think about him dancing through some chicago airport terminal.
when jake was about four i took him to the temple in north sydney although the experience was very different, it had a more corporate style by then, i think there had been some sort of big change in the whole movement but whatever it was it didn't feel right for me.
my early years in sydney i'd always go to govindas, the cinema and restaurant in kings cross, what an absolute perfect place that was. one of my favourite spots in the city, long gone. i'd always have this amazing meal then go watch a movie and fall asleep almost immediately after laying down on those big cushions. great place for a date, one could slip into a soft intimacy without really having to try. i loved it.
holding onto the book i watched the night pass me by as morning arrived my thoughts taking strange detours memories merged with landscape. 
a group of kids embark at hornsby and they start singing an 'ah ha' song, it makes me smile, i hate that single but i love almost everything else they did, that huge elemental sound, landscapes and memories. 
religions and beliefs, so many, some good some bad, some set you free while others try to control, some work for you some don't, some gods are reasonable, others aren't but at the end of the day it's the same one, just different faces, the point is, find your path, stick to it, for it is the journey that is the destination, not the destination.
some of the people you meet on the way are just yourself. 
i cast my mind to my work, always with humans, it's always been one devalued group after another, homeless disenfranchised, beaten and battered, offender and offended, innocents and guilty, the helpless and the hopeless and in the end i remain convinced all you can really do is make it safe for them to do what they have to do, which is cry, wail and howl. we all break. i don't judge, i can't even advise, i can just hold their hand and say softly, it's okay, you are safe, with me, i'm just like you.
i remember jason, a young kid i worked with who had committed a terrible crime, an act so depraved i can't even write it, but he came at me once with a knife running towards me in a blur of frustration, anger and rage. the guy didn't stand a chance, he was a kid from terrible family conditions but he liked me, or at least had moments where he did. something had sent him into a furious rage and there he was racing at me with a blade. partly out of surprise but completely involuntary i smiled and opened up myself, in a death pose and just offered myself to him with a stupid grim. (it was not bravery or even a considered strategy, it was just automatic) and i watched his face, a map of all the pains and hate in his short existence and that knife stopped a fraction of a cm from my chest, he let it go and broke down sobbing at my feet. what are you going to say, 'naughty jason, shouldn't play with knifes?'
they wanted me to charge him but i refused, instead i just held his hand until he stopped crying and told him it's okay, he's okay and, i lied, everything would be okay. i didn't know that everything would be okay, i'm not clairvoyant but it seemed like a natural thing to say. 
anyway the point is, i been there to, i been angry, hurt, wanted to lash out and sometimes lashed much to my shame. there's no difference between wanting to lash and lashing really, the intention becomes some energy on some level. a bad thought can do a lot of damage.
anyway's my point i think i'm trying to articulate is there's no separation really, you me and the devil, we all just doing our best with what we got. i count my blessings, one two, if i wake up breathing i'm winning. anything else it has to be a blessing.
so 3am i arrive home, gotta go to work soon, i sprawl out on the sofa. its been a long, long night and i'm already in tomorrow. 
and then, as i fall into some tranquil zone i remember a story i read a long long time ago, about a hero who fights a war and realises after he's killed everyone he was fighting for the wrong side. maybe that's me. how are we really to know anything about what's right?
my brain must have shut down automatically at this point, like a zen koan the gears come to a screeching halt!